


(so tired) trying to see from behind the red in my eyes

by SafelyCapricious



Series: dreams and divination don't predict the future [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, POV Draco Malfoy, Post-Canon, Therapy, Veela Hermione Granger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27425425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: Pansy spills into his study, which means he had heard the sound of the floo earlier. It’s supposed to be locked after nine, which means he’ll have to double check the wards again.“You’re drunk,” he says, dryly, as he calls for his house elf to try to figure out where to put her.“Your face is drunk,” she remarks back, and then she’s collapsed across his desk and is staring at him with fixed eyes. “How’re your dreams, Malfoy? Seeing anyone in them? Anyone I know? Say, someone with ridiculously large hair?”
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: dreams and divination don't predict the future [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967506
Comments: 13
Kudos: 172





	(so tired) trying to see from behind the red in my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS 
> 
> also, lets paint this motherfucker blue
> 
> Also also, title from Hozier's Jackie and Wilson b/c that's where the first of the series got its title.
> 
> Alsox3, you should probably read the first two parts of this series for full understanding, I mean, unless you want to be confused like Draco. Which could be fun? 
> 
> Anyways, I bet ya'll thought you'd seen the last of me (because of fictober), but honestly this almost got posted during fictober but I just didn't quite get it done, but it's done now and the world is ???? so whatever, have some fic. Lemme know what you think.

Draco feels like he’s been dreaming about her forever. That’s clearly not true, he didn’t meet her until he was eleven, but it’s still how he feels.

And yes, the dreams have changed over the years -- his subconscious now is not the same as when he _was_ eleven. Thank Merlin for small favors.

He wishes he meant it the dreams were dirtier — and sometimes they are, but mostly…Mostly he has more nightmares about her now.

Ones where his aunt doesn’t stop at her arm. Continues to cut and cut and no one comes to save her until she’s just a pile of meat but somehow still begging and --

He much prefers the sex dreams. Even if they do sometimes make him feel _more_ guilty.

He knows he doesn’t deserve to see her like that -- that he’ll never get to in real life and _she_ wouldn’t want him to --

Sometimes the nightmares hurt less, in the long run, even if they do leave him shaky and reaching for something to take the edge off.

But he’s used to not getting quite enough sleep these days, and he has learned to make due with catching short naps and caffeine.

***

Pansy spills into his study, which means he _had_ heard the sound of the floo earlier. It’s supposed to be locked after nine, which means he’ll have to double check the wards again.

“You’re drunk,” he says, dryly, as he calls for his house elf to try to figure out where to put her.

“Your face is drunk,” she remarks back, and then she’s collapsed across his desk and is staring at him with fixed eyes. “How’re your dreams, Malfoy? Seeing anyone in them? Anyone I know? Say, someone with ridiculously large hair?”

He blinks and swallows wrong, and the fire whisky burns. He’s not drunk though. Not yet — it’s not that late. But sometimes having a drink before bed helps take the edge off and keep the dreams away.

Sometimes it does nothing. But he wants to have at least said he tried.

“What are you talking about? My dreams are none of your business. How drunk are you?” he demands, annoyed and trying to hide it, as she wanders around his office, picking things up and immediately putting them back down.

“She’s too good for you,” she answers — which is an answer, but not really the answer he was looking for.

“What?” he asks, using magic to catch the vase that her gesture tries to knock off the mantlepiece.

“Hermione,” Pansy clarifies, collapsing onto the chair by the window that he spends sleepless nights in, “is too good for you.”

And that is the truth most definitely. But mostly he still wants to know how drunk she is — because if she’s going to burst into tears or start throwing up or anything, that’s what he cares about right this second. “That doesn’t actually answer my —“ her words catch up with him suddenly, and he sits down heavily, “since when are you on a first name basis with Granger?” he demands, gripping the desk in front of him hard enough to hurt. If his voice wavers he hopes she’s too drunk to realize, or at least too drunk to remember in the morning.

“Gryffindors are very physically affectionate. Ravenclaws too, maybe, I think she might be an outlier. Did you know that? I don’t think you’re ready for that,” Pansy sniffs at him and tilts her head up, scowl firmly in place.

He wants to protest that he can handle that — that he would very much _like_ that from one Gryffindor in particular, but then she starts to hiccup which tells him just how drunk she is (very) and he decides to mentally table this conversation until later.

Dizzy scowls at him when he asks her to put Pansy to bed, which is fair, but Pansy takes a swing at him when he gets close and she isn’t fighting the house elf.

***

“So,” Draco says, three days later, trauma still fresh behind his ribs. He sets the three butterbeers down on the table and retakes his seat, timing his next words to correspond to both of his friends taking a sip. “Pansy and Granger have become friends.”

There isn’t a spit take — which he’d rather been hoping for — but Theo does start to choke. Blaise is clearly too shocked to help him, butterbeer having sloshed out of his mug when he dropped it on the table, and slowly dripping into his lap.

Draco pounds on Theo’s back until he’s able to take a breath, though from the look on his face he might’ve been hoping for the sweet embrace of death.

“Tell me you’re joking,” Blaise demands, eyes wide, still ignoring the liquid that’s dripping off the table onto him. “Because that’s a terrifying thought and — how? _Why_?”

“You know Edgecombe? She still has to wear bangs because of that curse. And I heard that she kept Rita in a _jar_. She and Pansy would — no. That’s — we can’t let them be friends!” Theo, still red in the face, leans across the table, shaking, eyes wide.

Draco snorts. “You want to, what, tell Pansy who to be friends with? Or better yet, tell _Granger_?”

Theo sits back heavily and tilts his drink back and chugs the whole thing. If Draco had been feeling kind he probably should’ve bought fire whisky for this round. Though that would’ve hurt worse, to choke on.

“I’m certainly not going to tell either of them who they can be friends with,” he says, calmly, like he hadn’t had a panic attack after Pansy had passed out trying to cuddle Dizzy.

“How did they even — I thought they hated each other?” Blaise is staring into his half empty glass, like it’s holding answers somehow.

And that isn’t something he has an answer to, so he just shrugs and takes a normal sip of his drink like he hasn’t just purposefully ruined the day of his two best friends because misery loves company, and if he has to be haunted by the possibility, so do they.

***

“I’ve been having dreams about — about someone specific every night,” Draco forces out, gaze fixed on his glass of water on the table in front of him, when there are only fifteen minutes left in his weekly session.

“How long as that been going on?” his therapist asks, calmly, even though she’s been asking how Draco sleeps and what he dreams about since he first started seeing her, and he always just says fine and nothing.

“It seems like…like a long time but… _every_ night probably started about four months ago? The dreams used to be mixed — watching her get tortured or die, or, erm, adult things,” he averts his gaze, and blushes, feeling like a fool. He’d rather describe the torture, honestly.

“You said ‘used to be,’ what changed?”

“Now they’re…they’re all sex,” he rasps out, reaching for his glass of water and taking several painful swallows.

His therapist meets his gaze over her glasses and offers a supportive smile — and then lets him change the subject to his mother.

But he can tell she’s pleased — she just knows better than to push him immediately. Which is probably one of the reasons he’s still seeing her. Well that and how much she really has helped him reprioritize his life.

***

He’s fiddling with his cufflinks as he steps out of the lift. He’s still deeply self conscious when he’s in public by himself — but bringing someone with him to see his therapist, now, is a level he’s not quite ready to commit to. Maybe back when it had been court mandated as part of his sentence following the war, but then he hadn’t had the sense to be self conscious about any of it.

Not that anyone knows that his therapist is where he’s coming from, or that he’s still seeing a therapist, even. Obviously the hospital knows, but they haven’t spilled it to the media yet — and since it’s been several years, at this point, he’s optimistic it won’t ever be ‘a thing’.

He’s almost to the exit of St. Mungo’s when two familiar faces step through the door and pull up short.

He could easily walk around them and continue on his way and just ignore them — which might, honestly, be the most polite thing to do but…

“Weasley,” he says, fingers readjusting his cufflink, “Lovegood,” and he nods.

They’ve just stopped and are staring at him with peculiar expressions.

“Don’t you think last names are a little school-yard?” the female Weasley asks, still leaning heavily on her friend’s shoulder and scowling.

Since he had specifically _not_ called either of them any of the multitude of rude names he’d been known to use in the past, he doesn’t, actually, think he’s being ‘school-yard’. Honestly, he thought he was being polite and —

“It is _rude_ ,” he points out through his teeth which are bared in what might be mistaken for a smile if one was almost entirely blind, “to use first names without permission.”

“Bullshit,” the redhead coughs into a fist.

“Oh! That’s very kind of you!” Lovegood says, practically vibrating in place. “You may call me Luna, may I call you Draco?” She’s staring at him, all earnest blue eyes and sparkling good intentions and he’s fairly sure he’d rather deal with her grumpy companion.

He wants to tell her no — he doesn’t know them well enough to want them to have that intimacy but — but he’s suddenly fairly sure that they’d been mentioned when Pansy had gone on her rant about Granger and — fuck.

He sighs and his shoulders fall away from his ears as he admits defeat. “Of course you may, Luna.”

“Wonderful!” he thinks she would be bounding if she wasn’t holding up her friend. “And this is Ginny! Oh, it’s so good we can all get along! It will be much nicer for her—“

Weasley — Ginny — and isn’t that going to take some time to get used to, slaps a hand over Luna’s mouth and grins wide and fake. “Alright, ankle hurts, time to go. Nice to see you Mal-Draco. Sleep well on your piles of Gallons!”

And it almost sounds like she means that, as she drags her friend away, hissing words he can’t catch and doesn’t particularly want to, in any case.

***

Draco is not surprised when Pansy is not waiting for him where she demanded he meet her.

She hadn’t even tried to come up with a reasonable justification for meeting her on the sidewalk, after all.

The whole thing had been blunt and obvious, and he thinks they probably need to stage an intervention for her, she’s been spending too much time around Gryffindors.

Not an intervention to stop spending time with them of course, he likes his balls where they are, but just to force her to spend some more time with Slytherins before she loses all subtlety.

So really it’s not a surprise when Pansy isn’t there, but Granger is standing there and scowling.

What is a surprise is how seeing her feels like he’s coming up for a breath of fresh air after spending the last year drowning. To try to stop himself just from gaping at her, he says, “Granger?” like it’s a question. And, to be fair, he hadn’t been _sure_ who would be here. He’d just been sure it wouldn’t be Pansy.

And then he sees how drawn and tired she looks, even as she says his name, and he immediately wants to pack her up and set her by a fire and give her some tea and maybe a pile of books and some sweets and watch her nap and —

And that’s a _lot_.

He forces his gaze away from her and realizes that others are staring at her with slack jaws and ending closer like she’s prey and that not only does she look drawn and tired but she looks a little bit _scared_ and she’s _swearing_ and no.

He moves to her to try to act as a shield, even though he’s fairly confident he’s the last person she’d want close — but then some of the tension leaks out of her shoulders and her whole body tilts slightly towards him and —

And some asshole just grabbed her and — he wraps his hand around her arm to pull her away, or maybe apparate them to safety, because there’s more fear in her eyes and the last time he did _nothing_ but this time he’ll keep her safe and —

The man backs of immediately.

“What the fuck is going on, Granger?” he asks, confused and unhappy and still not sure if he should be apparating them away from this or what in Merlin’s name is going on. And for a moment she’s looking at him like she does sometimes, I’m his dreams — and

And he’s not sure what to do with that.

She starts to babble at him, which is unlike her — or, at least, how he remembers her. But she’s not afraid, or angry, she’s _nervous_.

And what Pansy implied — said — or, or whatever — he honestly cannot completely remember but he thinks that maybe — and he takes a stab in the dark because she’s not moving away from him and doesn’t seem upset that he’s touching her and — and what’s the worst that could happen?

He’ll survive getting punched again, thank Merlin for mediwizards.

“I think you owe me an explanation,” he says, and then because he _wants_ to use her first name, “Granger, about why you’re in my dreams.”

He expects a dramatic reaction — the punch, or maybe her pulling away and disappearing or being hexed or a denial or being told that he’s _crazy_ but…but instead she just stares at him.

And he hopes.

***

“What do you know about Veela?” she asks, taking a small bite from one of the tea biscuits, after he’s gotten her settled into his small dinning room. Her eyes light up and she takes a larger bite and he wonders how often it would be appropriate to send her a tin of them. Would weekly be too much? But if she got them weekly she could share them if she wanted, and he thinks she’ll probably want to share.

He’s never been more grateful about refusing to back down on getting his own place, as soon as he could. He’d discussed it with his therapist, who had agreed it was probably a good idea, but he knows he wouldn’t have had the balls to invite Granger back to Malfoy Manor, not after everything but — but here in his airy penthouse it seems reasonable for her to be there sitting with him.

“Despite the rumors,” he says dryly, carefully selecting a different type of biscuit even though those are are his favorite, because he’d rather she have as many as she wants now, “neither my mother or father have any Veela blood.”

“Oh I know,” she says, biting her lip — and he takes a large gulp of tea because he can’t do or say what he wants, “or, well, I _didn’t_ know that but that’s not why I asked.”

She doesn’t say anything else and she glances at the plate of biscuits but doesn’t take one and he can’t help but nudge it closer to her. “Please,” he begs, because she looks worried again and then he realizes she asked a question he never answered and —

“I know that they are considered a magical being, usually depicted as women but I believe multiple genders exist, who are beautiful and can mesmerize but also are very protective and can be quite vicious.”

A biscuit is shredded between her fingers and she stares at the teapot and then she’s taking a breath and her shoulders are straightening and her brow is furrowed but she looks resolute now, not upset, and he’s glad.

“When they mate — or when they reach a certain age rather — or, well — in any case,” she says and he sets his chin in a palm to watch her.

“Veela chose a mate, but until they’re mated they’re distractingly attractive to anyone else.”

“I see,” he says after she pauses without signs of continuing, “very interesting.”

She grits her teeth and he fights a smile. “I have Veela ancestors — and apparently you’re my mate,” she says and his chin slips from his palm and he slips from his chair and —

“What,” he wheezes from the floor as Hermione Granger — literal woman of his dreams — peers down at him with concerns.

He stares up at her and for a moment he just wants to be selfish. He’s sure that she’s telling him this because there’s some way for her to break it — but he’s not sure if she needs his assistance to do it or if she’s actually Hufflepuff enough to just want to keep him in the loop.

And if it’s the second he can’t do anything to stop her — but if it’s the first, if it’s the first then he can say no and she’d have to —

Reality crashes back into him and he forces himself to take a breath and stand up, dusting himself off.

“Are you okay?” she asks, and he can’t tell if she sounds concerned or if he just wants her to be.

“A year,” he says, mind whirling — she’s come here to break whatever mate bond she thinks they’ve formed and — and he won’t be selfish, he’ll let her go but he has to at least _try._

“What?” she asks sharply as he settles back into his seat and takes a bracing sip of tea.

She’s right, he can’t possibly expect her to give him a whole year to try to win her, and he doesn’t think he could make her love him in less than that but — but she _is_ a Gryffindor, for all that she’s frighteningly pragmatic, and if he can at least make her feel more kindly about him then he has a chance. He lets out a sharp breath and meets her eyes, trying to be as earnest as he can be. “Six months then.”

It will probably take about six months to apologize for over six years of bullying, but it’s better than nothing and he can’t just — he can’t just know this and let her go. He doesn’t deserve her, he knows he doesn’t, and if he was a better person he’d just let her go but — but he’s not a better person. If he was a better person he’d probably deserve her, which is some rather twisted piece of fate, but there it is.

“Six months for _what_?” she asks, sharply and he blinks at her.

“Let me have six months to court you — and then I’ll do whatever you need me to do to help you break the bond,” and she’s staring at him and he’s not sure what that look means but — “Please,” he pleads, shamelessly. He reaches for her and then pulls back and grabs a biscuit instead.

He doesn’t have permission to touch her, and he doesn’t want to unduly influence her and — oh Merlin, can he unduly influence her? He’s going to need to learn more about this whole Veela mate thing and fast.

“ _You_ want six months to…” she’s staring at him still with some measure of confusion and he wonders if he should’ve asked for less but — but if he’s following traditional courting behavior he won’t even _touch_ her in the first three months and Pansy had warned him that Gryffindors were physically affectionate. “…court me,” she finishes, but she doesn’t make it a question.

He nods anyways.

Her eyes narrow and then she nods sharply. “Fine, yes. Let’s do that.” And his entire spine melts with relief and it’s an effort not to slouch.

**Author's Note:**

> tl;dr? Here ya go:
> 
> Draco: *daydreaming* And then in three months I can take her hand and maybe in six months we can kiss? but only if she’s comfortable and…and maybe we’ll be able to dance! I should buy her flowers
> 
> Hermione: *Sitting here, consumed with lust* 
> 
> Come find me on tumblr. Either my [normal tumblr](https://safelycapricious.tumblr.com/) where I reblog just weird shit, or my [writing tumblr](https://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/) where I post things I've written and memes and shit. Whatever, come say hi. The current state of the US, and whatever else is happening I don't even know anymore, is slowly driving me out of my mind. Hope ya'll surviving. Love you all.


End file.
